(Artwork by: Adam Turman)(Image via: NYCDreamin Archives)
Had a wonderful time last evening at the opening night of activities at the 2009 Minneapolis "Art-A-Whirl" Festival, a showcase of over 500 artists of all varieties. We went specifically to see paintings done by The Gorgeous One's brother-in-law, James Dankert, that were exhibited at the Spot-Art Gallery located at 1828 Marshall Street NE. James (aka Bill) is also the drummer for Minnesota music legends "The Gear Daddies." The paintings he had on display are from his series of "office-life" images, showing people in office cubicles and doing things in office settings. Very colorful and attention grabbing images. You can see some of his works at his website JamesDankert.com.
There were several other artists showing in the space as well and we enjoyed walking around checking out all the cool photos, paintings and sculptures on display. We also took a stroll over to the "California Building" a few blocks away and looked at lots of interesting and bizarre stuff there as well. I was particularly struck by a painting pointed out to me by The Gorgeous One, of the Brooklyn Bridge done by a guy from Circle Pines, MN whose business card I seem to have misplaced already. It was truly a thing of beauty, probably my favorite piece that we saw all evening. Gotta find that card! We talked to the artist for a while and he was telling us about this place in China Town, NYC where you can (for a small fee of 50 cents) play Tic-Tac-Toe with a chicken. I had never heard of this before nor seen it on my trips to NYC. He said the chicken ALWAYS wins. I imagine he'd be dinner if he didn't - NYC is a tough town!
After a while we strolled back over to the Spot-Art Gallery and stopped in at the gallery next door (1828 Marshall Street NE is their street address as well) called the ArtMinion Gallery. When we walked in I was quite thrilled to see a bunch of stuff done by artist Adam Turman whose artwork I have been seeing around the city for a few years now. He has a very unique and immediately identifiable style of "pin-up" graphics that always catch my attention. We looked around for a while and had the pleasure of saying hello to Adam himself just as we were about to leave. He seems like a pretty cool guy and I told him how much I enjoyed his stuff and with that he handed me his business card (pictued above) and let us know about all the cool stuff on his website. You can visit him at AdamTurman.com.
Around 9:30pm we said our goodbyes to James and his wife and we were soon on our way home, discussing all the cool stuff we had seen through the course of the evening.
The 2009 Art-A-Whirl Festival runs through Sunday, May 17th.
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